The state of Florida is reporting the fewest number of new COVID-19 cases per capita in the country though GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to be criticized over his lax pandemic policies.
The state’s health officials reported an average of 1,393 cases per day as of Friday, which is just six per 100,000 people, a 2 percent decrease throughout the past two weeks.
Nevertheless, DeSantis has been roundly — and frequently — criticized in the media and elsewhere since the pandemic began after he pushed back against government mask and vaccine mandates.
Last year, for instance, one Democrat politician accused him of engaging in a “killing spree” after he voiced opposition to mask mandates. And a Vanity Fair headline in September referred to DeSantis as an “angel of death.”
Alternate headline: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Continues Killing Spree https://t.co/Wh0spcg3RG
— Chris King (@ChrisKingFL) November 25, 2020
And while Florida is reporting the lowest number per capita of new cases, other states led by Democratic governors who historically imposed some of the strictest lockdown measures have experienced, and are experiencing, COVID surges.
That includes Michigan, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was heavily criticized by state residents for imposing some of the more controversial mandates throughout the pandemic: Her state now leads in daily COVID cases per capita.
New York, meanwhile, is currently experiencing an average of 6,666 new cases per day, or about 34 per 100,000 people, even though former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Democratic Mayor Bill DeBlasio, and now Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul were all praised by the same media for their mandate-heavy approach. Cuomo, in fact, was even given an Emmy Award for his daily COVID press briefings.
“It just shows once again the success of Governor DeSantis’s science-based and data-based policies,” said DeSantis Press Secretary Christina Pushaw in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“He’s always made decisions based on the data and that continued even during the Delta surge this summer what he realized would help was not mask mandates in school or lockdowns but provide treatment that actually works,” she continued.
“He opened the 25 state-supported monoclonal antibody sites and provided that treatment all over the state free of charge to over 150,000 Floridians, saved thousands of lives, and that happened starting in August,” Pushaw noted further. “Since then our cases are down by over 95 percent with no restrictions on people’s freedom.”
Earlier this month during a press conference, DeSantis explained again why he has never been in favor of a mandate-heavy approach to dealing with the pandemic.
“The states are the primary vehicles to protect peoples’ freedoms, their health, their safety, their welfare in our constitutional system. What Biden is doing is not constitutional,” the governor said, referring to the president’s vaccine mandate. “There has never been a federal vaccine mandate imposed on the general public.”
He also addressed why he forbade schools in the state from imposing mask mandates on students and instead empowered parents to make the decision instead.
“The fact of the matter is, you don’t have the right to do wrong, and if I had not stepped in last year and made sure that these local governments couldn’t lock you down…couldn’t fine…we had kids in school last year because of me, not because of them. That’s just the bottom line,” he said.
“We had to stand up for people’s liberties, their livelihoods, their right to work, people’s right to own a business, and it was the right thing to do,” he said.
Jon has over 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
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